Such a Tool January 12, 2009

This weekend, Chris Owens, Brand* Planning Group Head from the Richards Group in Dallas, came as our guest planning instructor. 10 years ago, he attended MAS Account Planning Boot Camp and has been giving back ever since. His insights on the boot camp and on planning have been inspiring and reassuring. We won’t know everything there is to know after these 12 weeks, but that’s good. As planners we should never stop learning, looking for problems to solve or seeking out emerging trends.

Friday night, Owens spoke to us about our Account Planner tool box – NOT the same as a tool box one would purchase from Home Depot. Our theoretical tool box is filled with items like Google, our internal research team, Flickr, industry blogs, review web sites, Facebook, creative briefs, creative briefings, context mapping, audience profiling, story telling, a strong understand of who we are and who we are not as planners and much more.

Although this sounded like a lot to grasp from one lecture, to me it actually made a lot of sense. There are many tools that I have in my very own tool box that I utilize for research, motivation, ideas, new trends, consumer insights, etc. Filling a planner’s tool box is fairly simple, the hard part is learning how to appropriately utilize these resources and make yourself a better informed, more insightful planner. This is where I’ve been struggling as I develop into a planner. How do you use your tool box to essentially develop a story that will inspire a creative team, motivate media planners and ultimately generate a relevant, timely and effective brand campaign  that consumers will react to and engage with?  I’m on a mission in Miami to find out! (MAS GOAL #1 )

In order to get us used to using our tool boxes to gain insights, Chris provided valuable guidance on how to start with a lot of broad information, narrowing that down into an idea, telling a story and then constructing a brief. His outlook on the creative brief being simply a “FORM” and nothing more than the minutes to the briefing was an interesting point of view that makes the briefing (the story telling time) the most critical part of developing the idea. Too many times at an agency, we rely on the brief to be the end all be all of the advertising idea, when it really needs to be a collaborative session(s), an organic document, in which the key idea is derived from the planners insights, consumer findings and trend research. The planner merely plants a seed in which the team works together to nurture and grow.

I’d have to say our session on creative briefs and story telling was one of the most valuable things I took away from our weekend with Chris. Aside from that, I was fortunate enough to be part of a group that went to dinner with him. As he explained his story of how his agency sponsored him, paying for the MAS Boot Camp in hopes that he would return and set up a planning function at that agency when he got back, I was immediately interested. “ME TOO!! How did you do it, what advice do you have, where should I start???” My return to Ypartnership is something that I am very nervous about. I’m not entirely sure what the expectation level is, how to implement this new function and how successful I will be as a planning power of 1. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s not expected for me to come back and be the best planner there ever was, but of course that’s what I’m going to strive for. Chris reassured me that there’s no way I can set up an entire department on my own, especially after only 12 short weeks of learning. It will take YEARS for this to happen and for me to get comfortable within my own planning skills.

So far, I’m working on making a list and a timeline of things I’d like to accomplish upon my return. They will be small things, little changes that will make a big impact over time. I don’t expect to be the agency’s Dali Lama, but I will strive to be great at telling an insightful story,being a brand and creative strategist and challenging the norm.

Aside from this weekend’s learnings, we’re working on an eBay project with our newly created teams due Wednesday, another briefing project for Thursday, being briefed on NY Times by the client tomorrow and have a planner project for next week. Crazy stuff, sleepless nights, lots of coffee and plenty of Advil. Pretty much like working at a real agency.

Group Meeting So Far = 6 planned, 2 already today

 

*Christopher Owens has not been promoted to the Grand Planner as I had previously titled him. Although maybe the title is well deserved… Kind of sounds like a Harry Potter title – the Grand Master of Planning! 

Insights January 8, 2009

Things I’ve noticed account planners have in common… 

Hope You Brought Your Floaties… January 8, 2009

‘Cause your either going to sink or swim over the next 12 weeks…

So far, MAS Account Planning Boot Camp is going from 0 – 120 mph in the first three days. So far, I’ve met the 19 other “campers”, received an account planning specific project, been put into a group with a creative, copywriter and other planner and been tasked with our first team project. Here’s a breakdown of the first few days at Miami Ad School:

 

MONDAY  MORNING ORIENTATION

7:00 am. I woke up with a nervous anticipation on what that day may bring. First quarter Miami Ad School students had orientation at 9am. Orientation? I couldn’t remember the last time I had to go to orientation and I definitely don’t ever remember it being pleasant.

I had the fortune of meeting 10 or so of my fellow planning classmates the previous evening. It’s a very dynamic and interesting group. It was a relief to know that the others were just as curious, nervous and excited as I was. We’ve all come from very different backgrounds and experience levels, but it was clear that no matter who we were or where we came from, we had a few distinguishing qualities and interests that gave us all an instant feeling of connection. I had the immediate sense that I was going to get along with these people instantaneously, which doesn’t happen very often.

Monday’s morning orientation was a bit of a cluster. The planning kids stuck together, welcoming the few that we hadn’t met the night before into our newly developed family. Other first quarter students were creatives, copywriters and photography students. Our mentors, who later gave us one of the most hysterical and unorganized tours of the school, were creative and copywriting students that were further into their 2-year programs. 

The school itself represents the little known key factors to a great advertising agency – creativity, eccentricity and lack of administrative organization. It became clear to a few of us, that we were going to be given tools and resources, but a lot of the teaching would take place on our own and from each other. Those of us with agency experience weren’t surprised or concerned – we’d been teaching ourselves and learning as we go our entire careers. No Big Deal.

After orientation, ID picture taking and gaining a few bits of additional knowledge about the school and it’s brilliantly creative and dedicated owners and staff, the planners got some lunch. As a group we represent the following countries: Russia, United States, Lithuania, Venezuala, Costa Rica, Italy and Switzerland. I feel blessed to be introduced to so many different cultures and backgrounds and am learning so much beyond the classroom. We are so different, yet so similar.

 

MONDAY EVENING SPEAKER

Monday evenings we have an all school guest speaker come in and give us a lecture on a generic advertising topic. These speakers are in the industry and many of them are past students. For this first meeting the speaker was Dirte, the Executive Creative Director of Jung Von Matt, an agency in Germany. 

She gave us a look into her life after graduating from Miami Ad School and went over numerous examples of creative work she had done for car companies, cigarette brands, social advocate groups and more. It was interesting to see how far European advertising let you go. One of the cigarette ads was based on a soap opera and while it didn’t show anything too graphic, it insinuated that the two characters were having sex during the commercial (in a very comical way). This ad would have NEVER ran on US television. 

The takeaways from this presentation, past the visually stimulating creative, were:

• Always remember to find and focus on the “human truth” within the product, what will connect with the consumers? 
• What’s in it for me?
• Search for another angle, another point-of-view to present from (maybe the product, or the dog, child, etc.)
• Always remain relevant and authentic
• In Egypt they have sand and rock posters- very interesting concept

 

TUESDAY MORNING

This morning we had our first planning course with the school’s president – Pippa. She’s a very passionate person and really takes pride in all the MAS programs, but I get the sense she has a little extra love for the Account Planners. We did introductions with each other – you know the drill:

1. Stand up
2. Say your name
3. Where are you from?
4. How did you hear about Miami Ad School?
5. What’s a funny pet story you have?

Since this had been the umpteenth time we’d done this as a group, we all REALLY started to know each other.

Pippa informed us that Tuesdays would be role reversal classes where we would have the chance to be creatives and copywriters. I’m really looking forward to this because we’ll get to be on the other side of the fence looking back at ourselves. To put yourself in someone else’s shoes and gain insight into how they perceive you and the information you are providing is truly priceless. Too many times we just look at what we, ourselves are handling, working on or doing. Teamwork is going to be a valuable component to the success of planning at Ypartnership and by knowing what the creative team goes through after I hand them a brief will be so helpful. 

Before class ended, we looked through past Account Planner’s books,which we will be making on our own throughout the program. These books consisted of case studies outlining three or four projects that were worked on. They each recapped what the problem was, what the insight is and how the problem was solved. Some were good and some not so good, but each gave us a look into how we wanted to layout our own case studies once the projects commenced. 

The largest case study we’ll be working on is the NY Times, our main project client. For this project we will be tasked in positioning the NY Times as more than just a paper, but as a comprehensive information resource through online, mobile, viral, etc. It’s going to be an interesting challenge due to the current environment in the Newspaper industry. Distribution and subscription numbers are decreasing and papers must do something different to own a unique position in the marketplace. I don’t have my group for this until halfway through the quarter, but am already starting to read up on the NY Times and reviewing some industry research. 

First assignment – concept 30 ads by “spidering” ideas on Spring and Sandals. Essentially we’ll be linking 2 ideas visually that may not have any connection whatsoever. Example – worms and sandals. We’ll need to concept a total of 30 ads and then present our best 10 next Tuesday… should be interesting. My group is Olga (from Russia) and Andrehyna (from Madrid/Italy). I’m so excited to work with people from different countries as I feel it will really open me up more.

Total number of meetings scheduled = 1

 

WEDNESDAY EVENING

Last night’s class, Planning Project, was one I think everyone in the entire school has been looking forward to. It was then that we were placed into our first half of the quarter groups (one art director, one copywriter and two planners). My group:

Jackie – Copywriter

Jamie – Art Director

Annina and Myself – Planners

There are around 10 teams like this and for many of the creatives, it is their very first time working with the planners. Very exciting. As teams, we participated in a scavenger hunt/trivia game. It was an interesting ice breaker and team building exercise that got us all in the competitive spirit. Although we really rocked it out, our team did not come in first place… 

At the end of the session, we were given our first group project – develop  three campaigns – one will be from the two planners, one from the two creatives and then one as an entire group – on an Ebay project found on the the D & AD website. This page is very interesting, showcasing different creative campaigns and concepts from agencies and students all over the world. It’s become a valuable resource for me since most of the entries present case studies and creative briefs. 

Scheduled group meetings = 3 for this week. My schedule is getting booked… FAST! 

 

BUT…. I’m still making time to enjoy the scenery.